Death and the Sister
by Chaerod
Summary: A short story about a fourth Peverell sibling: the sister.


_"But though Death searched for the third brother for many years, he was never able to find him. It was only when he had attained a great age that the youngest brother finally took off the Cloak of Invisibility and gave it to his son. And then he greeted Death as an old friend, and went with him gladly, and, equals, they departed this life." -Hermione Granger reading the tales of Beedle the Bard_

Death returned to this world, satisfied that the three brothers had, finally, met their ends; for no man can forever elude Death. But Death was also troubled by the end of the third brother; what man would willingly choose to meet death?

Death was not the only one to ponder this. The three brothers also had a sister, who had spent her life forever in the shadow of her older brothers. She was clever, and headstrong, and perhaps a bit jaded. She wondered how Death could take the three brothers who had successfully cheated him once before.

So long did the sister search for the answer that she forgot about love and passion, about joy and laughter. She left behind all friends and family and revelry, until, after so long, she realized that she had quite forgotten how to live. And so finally Death approached her, hoping that she could answer the riddle that had itched at him since the third brother's passing.

The sister, too, saw her opportunity to learn the answer to her question; perhaps, if she found the answer, then her life was not, in fact, lived in vain. And so she begged Death to tell her of the passing of her three brothers.

Death told her of the first brother's hubris, and the second brother's buried despair. But try as he might, he could not explain the third brother's humble concession to defeat.

The sister wept, despairing. If Death himself could not answer her question, then she had indeed wasted her life chasing after an unsolvable riddle. How many beautiful moments had she squandered, searching in vain for an answer that could not be found?

Death, too, was troubled. He could not find the son of the third brother to answer the question, for the boy held his own cloak of invisibility, and was wise enough to evade Death, just as his father had.

But Death had the wisdom of infinite years, and an idea occurred to him. Perhaps he was simply too old and set in his ways to see the reasoning behind the third brother's departure. Though the sister was nearing the twilight of her years, she was, to Death, a mere child.

And so he proposed a trade: the sister would give him an eye, and in return, she would gain his. Perhaps, to truly understand Death, he had to view himself through the eyes of a mortal.

Desperate for closure, the sister agreed to his trade.

Death, with his long fingers, plucked out an eye from each of them, and traded them with the utmost care. And so he saw the world through the sister's eyes, and saw that it was bright and vibrant and lovely, but that it was also sad, cold, and unforgiving. He saw how the sister had always stood in her brother's shadows, envying them but also loving them; how she had searched ceaselessly for the answer to their passing.

The sister, with the eye of Death, saw the world as it truly was, how magic and life and death and time wove together like an immense and elaborate tapestry. She could see the past for what it was, the present for what it is, and the future for what it would be. She saw, and understood, and knew at last why her brother had chosen to meet Death on his own terms—for Death was not a sinister spectre, but a gentle guide to the next great adventure.

So the sister told Death the answer to the long-sought question, and for the first time in as long as he could remember, Death smiled.

Curious about this new way of seeing, Death and the sister decided to keep their mismatched eyes. And so they parted with the understanding that, when her time came, the sister would meet Death once more and return his eye to him, before departing for the next life.

With her new perspective and and understanding that she had time yet, the sister found a loving husband, and they adopted a young girl, for she was far too old to have children of her own. With time, the sister remembered what it meant to truly live. They spent many years together, and the sister was content, for with Death's eye, she saw that her husband and daughter would live for many happy years after she passed.

On the eve of her passing, the sister found Death once more. Reluctantly, the sister plucked out the borrowed eye, pressed it into his hands, and turned to go to her family, to spend her last moments on earth with them.

But Death had come to enjoy seeing the world through those mismatched eyes, and found that he had little use for the eye that he had given to the sister so many years ago. Instead of returning his old eye to its rightful place, he approached the woman's daughter as she slept and, deftly, switched one of her eyes for his.

And so it was that the daughter became the first seer.

 **-x-**

 **Author's Note: The original prompt for this was by the Harry Potter subreddit, and their prompt was to create a fourth Deathly Hallow. Well it turns out I discovered the prompt after submissions were already closed, but I was too drunk to notice a silly detail like that, so I figuratively brushed the dust from my typewriter (my closest equivalent being a keyboard, and I use that too often for it to really gather dust... anyways) and hammered something out. Obviously I completely ignored the prompt to create a fourth Hallow, and if you asked me, I couldn't tell you how I came up with this from that prompt. But my boyfriend and I were comparing old stories and I discovered it squirrelled away on my hard drive, so I thought I would share it.**

 **It takes on a tone a little more like a parable or classic children's tale (like the story of the brothers), which is a bit new to me, but it seemed to work well.**


End file.
